SAN DIEGO — Might as well stuff the turkey, set the table and get started with the holidays. No sense waiting on the Broncos.

Barring an epic, win-'em-all comeback, their 2010 season is cooked.

Once again, it was the ever slow-starting, always recovering, habitually yapping San Diego Chargers who stuck a fork in the Broncos.

The Chargers were their usual trash-talking selves before the game and backed it up, as usual, while bullying the Broncos 35-14 in an AFC West matchup before a raucous Monday night sellout crowd at Qualcomm Stadium.

The holidays are here, although not before the Broncos suffered loss No. 7, which often signals the end of a team's playoff hopes.

"We know we're in a tough spot," said quarterback Kyle Orton, who under duress completed 24-of-38 passes for 217 yards, but was sacked five times. "We're not hiding from that. But I think your first goal as a team has to be to improve and play better football on a consistent basis. Until we start doing that, where we are in the standings is basically null and void."

With a 3-7 record, the Broncos are three games behind AFC West-leading Kansas City with six to play. While such deficits are not insurmountable in the era of NFL parity, the Broncos' division hole is further darkened by the fact they're also looking up the division at 5-5 Oakland and the 5-5 Chargers.

"Obviously, when you put yourself in this situation, you're going to need a lot of things to fall your way," said Broncos coach Josh McDaniels. "We put ourselves in this situation, but there are still six games left to play and there are a lot of things we can do better, and that's what we've got to focus on."

Adding insult to defeat were the stinging words, and churning legs, of Chargers running back Michael Tolbert. During an interview with a local radio show last week, Tolbert was asked what he didn't like about the Broncos.

"Their demeanor," Tolbert said. "Ever since they've gotten a new coach, their demeanor is high and mighty and we want to knock them off their high horse."

High horse? Either Tolbert hasn't watched the Broncos play since they were last in San Diego, or he was trying to manufacture hatred for a sputtering foe. The Broncos did win in San Diego last year to improve to 6-0 at the time.

But they have gone 5-15 since. Tolbert said the Broncos gave him the business about those comments.

"Yeah, they were talking," he said. "They always talk. I wasn't worried about that. I'm not going to back off from anybody."

McDaniels, that new coach Tolbert referred to, came out of the visiting team's locker room with a nice game plan. But as the game went along, it revealed the fundamental problem with plans: They rarely last. Outside of the first series, there is no script for a faked punt pass here, an interception there, and sacks coming from everywhere.

Before the ebbs and flows, though, McDaniels did write a script worth laminating as it provided a lesson in how the pass can set up the run.

The first three plays were Orton completions for 47 yards. The next three were Knowshon Moreno carries for 22 yards and a touchdown.

Broncos QB Kyle Orton finds a seat on the turf following one of five sacks by the Chargers defense Monday night at Qualcomm Stadium. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

If only smarts, schemes and designs could sustain for 60 minutes. Eventually, brawn and talent prevails and the Chargers — even without star tight end Antonio Gates, their best player not named Philip Rivers — started taking control in the latter part of the first quarter.

Not that the Chargers were against using some of their own devious manipulation.

Leading 7-0, Denver's defense had seemingly held for a second consecutive series when, on fourth-and-14 from San Diego's 41, the Chargers' Mike Scifres stepped up in the punter's pocket and delivered a well-thrown pass down the middle to that smack-talking Tolbert.

The 28-yard play kept a drive alive that ended with Rivers throwing the first of his four touchdown passes.

Once Rivers and his playmakers received their first shot of confidence, they seemed to grow into monsters that couldn't be tackled by the Broncos' flailing defenders. Big-mouthed Tolbert plunged in from the 1-yard line midway through the second quarter for the Chargers' go-ahead score.

"Once you put your hand on the ground, you've got to play football just like we do," said Tolbert, who rushed for 111 yards on 25 carries. "Talking goes out the window."

Patrick Crayton, for years the No. 3 or No. 4 receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, put an all-pro move on eight-time Pro Bowl safety Brian Dawkins that left the Broncos veteran chasing after a 40-yard touchdown play that left only the margin of the Chargers' victory in doubt.

"Tackling was a problem for us tonight," McDaniels said.

The lopsided loss most likely means the Broncos' chances of playing in the postseason are finished. But on the bright side, pass the gravy.

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